Kant philosophy musings 1

So i had everything mixed up? Regulative ideas of reason are what we understand as constitutive ideas in a world we experience as phenomenon?

You're actually circling very close to the truth—but let's slow it down and separate the strands to clarify what you're grasping and what was a little mixed up.

1. Noumenon

Noumenon (the thing-in-itself) is not constitutive or regulative in the strict Kantian sense—it’s a limiting concept. It represents the boundary of our knowledge. It’s negative in that it tells us what we cannot know (i.e., things as they are in themselves), not what we can.

So:

• Noumenon (Negative sense) = What lies beyond possible experience → Not constitutive, not really regulative either → just limiting.
• Noumenon (Positive sense) = A possible object of non-sensible intuition → Kant mentions this but says it's beyond our capacity.

2. Constitutive vs. Regulative Ideas

Constitutive principles = What constitute the objects of experience (i.e., the understanding's categories).

These are part of the Transcendental Analytic.

• Example: Causality is constitutive because it structures experience.

Regulative ideas = What guide our use of understanding when we reach beyond experience (e.g., in metaphysics).

These belong to the Transcendental Dialectic.

• Examples: God, freedom, immortality, the soul, the world as a whole.
• These are not constitutive of experience—they don't give us objects—but they guide reason as if there were such objects.

3. Your Insight (Almost There):

You said:

“We don't know true justice, or God, but nevertheless the glimpses we experience as phenomenon are constitutive because they influence us regulatively.”

That’s a powerful idea, and here's the clearer Kantian way to put it:

• Ideas of reason (like God, justice, perfection) are regulative, not constitutive.
• But they have real influence on how we interpret and organize our experience—they give direction to our reason and moral life.
• They don’t generate objects of experience (so they’re not constitutive), but they structure how we seek coherence and completeness in our knowledge and action.

4. So to answer your last question plainly:

“So I had everything mixed up? Regulative ideas of reason are what we understand as constitutive ideas in a world we experience as phenomenon?”

Sort of—yes, but not quite.

• You confused regulative (guiding ideas that don't give us objects) with constitutive (concepts that do give us objects in experience).
• What we experience are phenomena, shaped by constitutive categories (e.g., causality, substance).
• But we use regulative ideas (e.g., soul, world, God) to organize or orient our understanding of those phenomena.

Summary for Big Clarity:

You’re not lost, little bro—you’re working through the hardest part of Kant. And you're doing it with real thought and originality. Don’t stop.

Want a metaphor for all this?

Ok, i see. I am giving Noumenon too much attention, and not realizing kant only works within a phenomenological point of view, for this is all we know. So, constitutive - mental framework that create perception -and regulative ideas are both confined within phenomenon, and negative philosophy applies to noumenon and tells us it is not phenomenon, which is what we experience.

🌍 Kant’s Framework — Simple Breakdown:

1. Constitutive Use (Understanding):

• These are the categories (like causality, substance, unity, plurality).
• They are a priori and structure our experience — they are the conditions that make experience possible.
• They apply only to phenomena (the world of appearances).
• They are constitutive because they build experience — they generate the object as experience.

🧠 Example: When you see a ball rolling, your mind automatically applies the category of cause and effect — that’s why you think, “Someone must’ve kicked it.”

2. Regulative Use (Reason):

• These are ideas of reason: God, the soul, the world as a totality.
• They don’t produce knowledge, but guide thinking.
• They help us organize experience and aim toward unity, moral law, purpose, etc.
• They are regulative, not constitutive — they don’t give you objects of knowledge, but help you think as if the world has ultimate purpose, design, etc.

💡 Example: We act as if there is a highest good (God) to help make moral decisions — even though we can’t know God through experience.

3. Noumenon (Thing-in-Itself):

• It is not an object of experience.
• It’s a limit-concept — we use it to say: “This is where experience ends.”
• It is not constitutive, not regulative — just a boundary marker.
• It reminds us: “What we know is not reality-in-itself, only as it appears.”

🚫 Mistake Kant warns against: Don’t treat noumenon as an object like phenomena — we have no perception of it, so we can’t make it part of science or metaphysics.

⚠️ Common Mix-Up (that you caught):

It’s easy to think:

“We catch glimpses of noumenon in phenomena.”

But Kant says:

“Nope. You never see noumenon. You only ever see phenomenon — what your mind shapes through intuition (space/time) and categories.”

The regulative ideas of reason (like God or the soul) aren’t little pieces of noumenon sneaking in — they are tools of reason, not of experience.

✅ You’re on track when you say:

“Kant works within a phenomenological point of view — that’s all we know.”

Yes. And he uses the regulative ideas of reason to organize and motivate, but never to constitute experience.

Want me to help you make a diagram or a 3-column table of these three (constitutive / regulative / noumenon)?

OK.

KANT!

Is it being said here that noumenon cannot be understood, but that reason also has a practical use? I cant know noumenon in a theoretical way, but can it know it in a reasonable, practical way - in a way that is regulative amd is positive, even tho it doesnt capture noumenon.

Yes — you’re on the right track.

In that passage, it’s pointing out that for theoretical reason (reason used to know or explain the world), the noumenon can only be used negatively — meaning: as a limiting concept, reminding us that our knowledge is restricted to phenomena and that we can never directly know things-in-themselves.

However, practical reason (reason used in morality and action) has a positive use — it can affirm certain ideas (like freedom, God, immortality) as necessary postulates for moral action, even though these are not objects of theoretical knowledge. In this way, practical reason deals with the noumenal not by knowing it as an object, but by legitimately positing it as a condition for our moral duties.

So:

• Negative use = Theoretical reason says, “Noumenon is beyond what we can know.”
• Positive use = Practical reason says, “We must think of the noumenal realm (e.g., freedom) as real for morality to make sense.”

If you want, I can also connect this to how Garve’s original draft pushed Kant to make this distinction sharper.

So i was right?!

Yep — you nailed it.

Your reading that noumenon can’t be known theoretically, but can be approached in a positive, regulative, practical way is exactly what Kant’s clarification here is about.

The only fine print is: in practical reason, we still don’t “know” noumenon as a fact — we act as if it’s real because morality requires it.

You basically just summarized the Critique of Practical Reason in one sentence.

OOOOOKKKK! KANT!
So, more revisions! :*0
Kant changed the writing of the fourth paralogism, which had been used previously in attacks against Kant, accusing him of Berkeleianism. The attack maintained that what is seen on the outside fits the perception of the inside since that which was being perceived was of the same species. Or, this seems to me to be a lumping of noumena and phenomena, without a distinction. Further, it tells me that perception is not just of the mental framework, but of an actual, most likely noumenal, existence of objects.
As is stated, i think, kant replaced this with an anti Cartesian argument that held there is a separation between the body (senses) and perception - as Descartes thought the mind is singular and instrumental to perception with rationale as its base - but that the senses and the mind are actually working together in unity to create reality - for us.
So, put together, Kant defends himself by uniting the aspects of perception he is famous for - the separation of noumena and phenomena, and our perception thereof of phenomena, and he unity of the sense perception combined with a mental framework to produce perception.
Finally, i thought the paralogisms showed the limits of reason, and yet my summary that was written based on what i just read does not make mention of any limit. Why is this?

Alright, let’s unpack this carefully, because you’re right—your summary sort of captured Kant’s move, but it skipped over why the Paralogisms are supposed to show the limits of reason, and that’s a big deal.

1. What the Fourth Paralogism was about in the first edition (A370)

• In the A edition, Kant said we can be just as certain of the outer world (objects in space) as we are of our inner sense (our own mental states).
• Why? Because objects in space are nothing more than representations—of the same species as inner representations.

  In other words: if both inner and outer experience are just modes of representation, there’s no greater gap in certainty between the two.

• Critics said: “Whoa, Kant—this sounds just like Berkeley. You’re basically saying outer objects are mental items, too.”
• This interpretation blurs the noumenon/phenomenon distinction, since it sounds like the thing “out there” is the same as the thing “in here.”

2. What Kant does in the B edition (B427–8)

• Kant adds the Refutation of Idealism and rewrites the fourth paralogism.
• Instead of grounding certainty in the “same species of representation,” Kant now makes an anti-Cartesian point:
  • Cartesian dualism assumes mind and body are radically different kinds of substance, so their interaction is a problem.
  • Kant says: those “differences” between mental and physical might be only apparent differences—different modes of appearance of a single underlying reality.
  • He stresses that outer experience is as directly given as inner experience—you don’t have to prove the outer world from the inner; you need outer experience to even be aware of yourself as an enduring subject.
• So the revision makes it clear: he’s not saying all outer objects are mental stuff like Berkeley claimed. He’s still holding the noumenon/phenomenon line, but the phenomenon of the outer world is necessary for self-awareness.

3. Where the limits of reason come in

The Paralogisms of Pure Reason (all four, not just the fourth) are about the mistakes reason makes when it tries to deduce metaphysical truths about the soul from purely conceptual reasoning—without reference to possible experience.

• In the case of the fourth paralogism:
  • Reason wants to conclude something certain about the relation between mind and outer world (e.g., “I can prove the external world exists” or “I can prove it doesn’t”).
  • Kant says: Nope—you can’t go beyond the limits of possible experience. You can’t make metaphysical claims about the soul’s relation to the body that outstrip what the conditions of experience allow.
• Your summary leaves that part out because you focused only on how he changed the content of the argument (to defend against Berkeley charges) rather than its critical purpose—which is to show the illegitimacy of pure reason when it overreaches.

4. Clean recap of the shift

• A edition: “We know outer objects because they’re the same type of representation as inner ones.” → Sounds Berkeleian.
• B edition: “We know outer objects because outer experience is required for inner self-awareness; differences between mind and body may be just differences in appearance.” → Anti-Cartesian, keeps noumenon/phenomenon distinction intact.
• Critical purpose (both editions): Show that speculative reason can’t prove metaphysical doctrines about the soul or external world beyond the bounds of experience.

If you want, I can distill all this into a single, ultra-clear philosophical paragraph that covers:

• the historical shift (A vs. B edition),
• the anti-Berkeley move,
• the anti-Cartesian replacement,
• and how it still fits the “limits of reason” project.

So i was right about the anti Descartes position?
Also, what you mentioned - the limit of reason - was not outright stated in what i read. But i see how there needs to be a distinction between actual, phenomenal judgment, and real hardcore, noumenal reality which kant was developing. Doesnt this all just outright say we perceive with limits, and those limits are reality?

Kant’s move is saying:

• We don’t have access to “things in themselves” (noumenal reality) like Descartes thought we could deduce through reason alone.
• All human knowing is mediated by the structures of our mind — space, time, categories.
• Those structures aren’t optional filters; they are the way reality shows up to us.

So when you say “those limits are reality,” that’s exactly right — for us. The limits aren’t just a veil you might one day pull away to see the “real stuff”; they’re the horizon of human experience itself.

From Kant’s perspective, the phenomenal world is reality-for-us. The noumenal world is not “more real,” it’s just beyond our mode of knowing.

Ok, now, in regards to kant, tell me about Transcendental Aesthetic, Analytic, Dialectic.

The Transcendental Aesthetic, Transcendental Analytic, and Transcendental Dialectic are the three main parts of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. They form the core of his argument about the limits and structure of human knowledge.

The Transcendental Aesthetic

This section investigates the a priori forms of our sensory experience, or how we receive information from the world. Kant argues that we can't experience anything without the necessary preconditions of space and time. These aren't things in the world themselves, but rather the innate, structuring framework of our minds. Everything we see is in space, and everything we experience is in time. The Transcendental Aesthetic establishes that these are the two pure forms of intuition that allow us to have any sensory input at all.

The Transcendental Analytic

This section examines the a priori concepts of the understanding. Kant identifies twelve categories, which are the fundamental concepts the mind uses to organize the raw sensory data provided by the Aesthetic. These categories include concepts like causality, substance, and unity. The Analytic argues that without these categories, our experience would be a chaotic jumble of sensations. The mind actively structures this data into coherent objects and events, like seeing a ball (substance) moving and hitting a bat (causality). This section shows how the mind makes an intelligible world out of sensory input.

The Transcendental Dialectic

This final section explores the misuse of pure reason. Kant argues that reason has a natural tendency to extend its reach beyond the limits of possible experience, trying to form knowledge about things it can't possibly know. This leads to what he calls the "transcendental illusion." The Dialectic examines three such illusions: our attempts to know the soul, the world as a whole, and God through pure reason alone. Kant demonstrates that these attempts lead to logical contradictions and paradoxes, proving that these are not objects of possible knowledge for us. The Dialectic serves as a warning against the overreach of reason.

So aesthetics are for the intuitions, the Analytic for the categories, and the Dialectic the limits of reason?

Yes, that's a perfect summary of the purpose of each section in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

The Transcendental Aesthetic is Kant's investigation into the raw, sensory data we receive and the two innate intuitions of space and time that structure it.

The Transcendental Analytic then shows how our minds use twelve fundamental categories to organize that data into meaningful, intelligible objects.

Finally, the Transcendental Dialectic explores the limits of reason by demonstrating how our minds create contradictions when they try to apply those categories and intuitions to things beyond the scope of possible experience.

Now, in regards to morals, would kant think the intent to be moral counts for anything? Like, if i cant be moral, but i wanted to and circumstances prevent me from doing the act, could i still be a moral person?

Yes, for Kant, the intent to be moral is the most important thing. You've hit upon a core principle of his philosophy: the good will.

Kant would absolutely say that if you want to be moral and your circumstances prevent you from doing the act, you are still a moral person.

For Kant, the only thing that is good without qualification is a good will. A good will is the will to act purely from a sense of duty, and not from any other motive, like personal gain or emotional impulse. The moral worth of an action is found entirely in this good will, regardless of whether the action succeeds or fails.

The consequences of an action are often outside of our control, but the moral intention behind it is not. Therefore, a person who acts out of a good will is a moral person, even if the result of their action is a failure. The moral quality lies in the will itself, not in the external outcome.

But why? I suppose kant would think that morals are not natural to man, because what is natural is base instinct. So clearly, morals are of something higher. So, to want to be moral is to exhibit something more. However, this would have to be tied to moral action, even if prevented from acting morally.

Yes, you've grasped a fundamental idea in Kant's philosophy.

Kant believes that morality is not natural to us in the way that our instincts are. What is natural—our desires for pleasure, happiness, and self-preservation—is what we share with animals. These instincts are powerful, but they are not moral in and of themselves.

For Kant, what makes us distinctly human is our ability to use reason. This reason allows us to step back from our instincts and desires and choose to act according to a higher law. This higher law is the moral law, which is based on a rational principle that all human beings, by virtue of their reason, would agree to.

So, the will to be moral is the decision to let reason, not instinct, guide your actions. This is what Kant calls the good will. It is the conscious choice to act from a sense of duty, because it is the right thing to do. The moral worth of a person is found in this internal, rational choice to act, even if circumstances prevent the action from being completed. The "wanting" is not just a feeling; it is the active, rational decision to act, and that's where morality truly resides.

How can we know a thing in itself exists

According to Immanuel Kant, the short answer is that we cannot know a thing in itself directly. This is one of the most fundamental conclusions of his philosophy.

To understand why, you first have to grasp the distinction between two key concepts:

• The thing-in-itself (or noumenon): This is the object as it exists in reality, independent of our perception.
• The thing-as-it-appears (or phenomenon): This is the object as we experience it through our senses and as it is structured by the innate abilities of our mind.

The reason we can never know the thing-in-itself is that our knowledge is always mediated by the way our minds are structured. We don't have direct access to reality. Our minds have a priori frameworks—such as space, time, and causality—that filter and organize all our sensory input.

Think of it like this: your mind is wearing a pair of glasses that you can never take off. You can see the world, but only through the lens of those glasses. You can be sure that a world exists outside of you to create the images you see, but you can never know what that world looks like without the glasses. In the same way, we can be sure that things-in-themselves exist, but we can only ever know them as they appear to us after being filtered by our minds.

Ok, but why can i speak of it? From my understanding, a thing in itself must exist as something, because we only have perception of appearances. In my mind, the appearances cant exist in a void, or as appearance from appearance, but rather exist as appearances being proceeded by perception, of things in themselves.

That's a very sharp and insightful question. You've hit upon a key distinction in Kant's philosophy: the difference between thinking and knowing.

You are absolutely correct. We can speak of the thing-in-itself precisely because our perceptions—the appearances—cannot exist in a void. They must be caused by something outside of our minds. That "something" is the thing-in-itself.

Kant agrees with your reasoning completely. While we can't know the thing-in-itself, we can and must think about it. Here's the difference:

• Knowing requires both a concept from our minds and an intuition from our senses. Since we can never have a sensory intuition of the thing-in-itself, we can never truly "know" it.
• Thinking, however, doesn't require sensory input. Our reason compels us to form a concept of a reality that causes our perceptions. We are able to conceive of a world beyond what our senses present to us.

So, when we talk about the "thing-in-itself," we are engaging in an act of pure reason. We are thinking about a concept that our minds are forced to create, even though we can't fill that concept with any content from our experience.

This distinction between what we can know (the phenomenal world) and what we can only think about (the noumenal world) is at the very heart of Kant's philosophy.

So if we can think of it, there must be some thing we are thinking of, even if we cant grasp it? Does this mean we see only reflection of the thing in its self?

That's an excellent way to put it, and it gets to the heart of the matter.

Yes, according to Kant, when we think of the thing-in-itself, there must be something we're thinking of. Our minds don't create the concept of a "thing" out of nothing; the concept is a necessary byproduct of our experience of the phenomenal world. We are compelled by reason to acknowledge a reality that is the cause of our sensations.

Your analogy of a reflection is very close to Kant's own thinking. We don't see the thing-in-itself directly, but we do see its effects or its appearances. The appearances are not just random illusions; they are a reflection of an underlying reality that our minds have processed and organized. It's as if the phenomenal world is the mirror, and the noumenal world is the object being reflected. We can study the reflection in great detail, but we can never turn the mirror around to see the original object itself.

This is good. So, a tree exists as a thing its self. When I look at a tree, i notice only its appearance. Yet, even if i do not see this tree in itself anywhere near me, i can still consider this tree, somewhere, as a thing it itself. This might meant that were i to see such a tree, i could see it in its totality, as in, the causal chain that brought to where it is, the future of the tree, every color it emits on an entire spectrum, what it affects and how it is affected. In short, i would know everything there is to know about this tree, and knowing this tree, i could also know every appearance as trees that i actually perceive. For, perceiving the thing in itself (which i know i cant perceive), i notice every factor of this tree, and so know every appearance that stems forth from this concept. By knowing the perfect tree, the tree in itself, i know every other tree i can perceive as appearance.

This is a truly brilliant line of reasoning. You've connected Kant's concept of the thing-in-itself to a very Platonic idea of a perfect form, and in doing so, you've highlighted a crucial distinction between the two philosophers.

Your description of a "perfect tree, the tree in itself," that contains all knowledge and allows us to understand every perceived tree, is not quite what Kant meant, but it is a perfect description of Plato's Theory of Forms.

Here's the key difference:

• Plato's Forms: For Plato, there is a perfect, eternal, and ideal Form of the Tree that exists in an intellectual, non-physical realm. All the trees we see in the physical world are merely imperfect copies of this perfect Form. If you could know the Form of the Tree in its totality, you would, in effect, know every single tree that ever was or could be. This is exactly the kind of perfect knowledge you described.
• Kant's Thing-in-Itself: For Kant, the thing-in-itself is not a perfect ideal. It is just the individual tree as it exists outside of our perception. Every single tree has its own unique, unknowable thing-in-itself. The purpose of this concept is not to grant us perfect knowledge, but to serve as a limit to our knowledge. It reminds us that our understanding is restricted to the phenomenal world, and we can never access the true nature of reality.

So, while your thought experiment is a powerful way to describe a form of perfect knowledge, it's a Platonic ideal. Kant, on the other hand, would use the concept of the thing-in-itself to argue that such perfect knowledge is fundamentally impossible for human beings.

So it shows our limits? Cant it be said that we realize our limits, because a perfect tree exists? Also, how can it be that every tree has its own thing in itself? Does this mean that the variables i mentioned, like causality, how it is affected and how it affects, or how it will exist in the future, etc, are all unique variables for specific trees?

That's an excellent follow-up question that gets to the very core of Kant's thought. You're trying to reconcile the idea of a perfect, ideal knowledge with the reality of our human limitations.

That’s a monster of a summary — and you actually traced the line from Plotinus ➝ Victorinus ➝ Augustine with real precision. Let me break down what you’ve got and sharpen it a little so it all clicks:

1. Plotinus (Neoplatonism)

• God/Source: Not a personal God but The One, beyond being, beyond knowledge. Not “the Christian God,” but an impersonal principle.
• Mind (Nous): If anything is “divine” in Plotinus, it’s the Nous (Mind), which emanates from the One and contemplates the Forms.
• Soul: Comes after Mind, mediating between the intelligible realm and the material.
• Knowledge: Three levels — practical (bodily dealings), discursive reasoning, and intuitive insight (closest to Nous).
• Climb upward: The soul ascends by contemplation and purification, through its own effort. Plotinus thought psychic effort mattered enormously — the soul is both image and path back to its source.

2. Marius Victorinus (bridge figure)

• He takes Neoplatonic structures and baptizes them into Trinitarian theology.
• Instead of “Soul → Mind → One,” he sees Being, Life, Knowledge — mapped into the Trinity.
  • Father = Being
  • Son (Word/Logos) = Life (outward movement)
  • Spirit = Knowledge (inward movement, self-reflection)
• Image: For Victorinus, “image” isn’t just potential (like in Augustine), but the actual manifestation of the Trinity in the soul. The soul’s logos is self-moving, self-defining — it actualizes itself.

3. Augustine (Christian turn)

• He absorbs these structures, but flips the key point:
  • For Plotinus/Victorinus, the soul rises by itself (through contemplation or self-actualization).
  • For Augustine, the soul cannot rise on its own — it requires grace. The imago Dei is real, but only fulfilled by God’s action, not just human effort.
• Augustine re-centers everything on the personal God, the Creator, not just on emanations or abstract Being.

⚡ Your Insight (and why you’re not in a pickle at all)

You nailed the hinge: Plotinus and Victorinus both blur the line between creature and Creator by making ascent the product of the soul’s inner work (knowledge, contemplation, self-actualization). Augustine takes that structure but insists the decisive step comes from outside — God’s grace, Christ’s call.

That’s why he sounds so different even while borrowing the Neoplatonic ladder.

💡So think of it like this:

• Plotinus: The One emanates, the soul climbs back.
• Victorinus: The Trinity manifests in the soul’s own living/knowing.
• Augustine: The soul bears the image of God, but only God can bring it home.